John E. O’Neill is a longtime Houston attorney with the firm the local litigation boutique, Clements, O’Neill, Pierce, Wilson and Fulkerson and a leading Swift Boat Veteran. In this Wall Street Journal ($) op-ed, O’Neill lays the wood to John Kerry’s judgment regarding his actions after returning from the Vietnam War. O’Neill replaced Kerry as the skipper of the six-man boat, the PCF-94 and, like Kerry, is a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War. The entire op-ed should be read, but here are a few highlights:
Despite our shared experience, I still believe what I believed 33 years ago — that John Kerry slandered America’s military by inventing or repeating grossly exaggerated claims of atrocities and war crimes in order to advance his own political career as an antiwar activist. His misrepresentations played a significant role in creating the negative and false image of Vietnam vets that has persisted for over three decades.
* * *
John Kennedy’s book, “Profiles in Courage,” and Dwight Eisenhower’s “Crusade in Europe” inspired generations. Not so John Kerry, who has suppressed his book, “The New Soldier,” prohibiting its reprinting. There is a clear reason for this. The book repeats John Kerry’s insults to the American military, beginning with its front-cover image of the American flag being carried upside down by a band of bearded renegades in uniform — a clear slap at the brave Marines in their combat gear who raised our flag at Iwo Jima. Allow me the reprint rights to your book, Sen. Kerry, and I will make sure copies of “The New Soldier” are available in bookstores throughout America.
And why should Mr. Kerry’s Vietnam experience matter today? Mr. O’Neill responds:
Since the days of the Roman Empire, the concept of military loyalty up and down the chain of command has been indispensable. The commander’s loyalty to the troops is the price a commander pays for the loyalty of the troops in return. How can a man be commander in chief who for over 30 years has accused his “Band of Brothers,” as well as himself, of being war criminals? On a practical basis, John Kerry’s breach of loyalty is a prescription of disaster for our armed forces.
John Kerry’s recent admissions caused me to realize that I was most likely in Vietnam dodging enemy rockets on the very day he met in Paris with Madame Binh, the representative of the Viet Cong to the Paris Peace Conference. John Kerry returned to the U.S. to become a national spokesperson for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, a radical fringe of the antiwar movement, an organization set upon propagating the myth of war crimes through demonstrably false assertions. Who was the last American POW to die languishing in a North Vietnamese prison forced to listen to the recorded voice of John Kerry disgracing their service by his dishonest testimony before the Senate?
Mr. O’Neill — who, like me, is politically independent — closes with why he is coming forward now:
Since 1971, I have refused many offers from John Kerry’s political opponents to speak out against him. My reluctance to become involved once again in politics is outweighed now by my profound conviction that John Kerry is simply not fit to be America’s commander in chief. Nobody has recruited me to come forward. My decision is the inevitable result of my own personal beliefs and life experience.
Today, America is engaged in a new war, against the militant Islamist terrorists who attacked us on our own soil. Reasonable people may differ about how best to proceed, but I’m sure of one thing — John Kerry is the wrong man to put in charge.
Probably because I did not serve in the Vietnam War, I am more sympathetic to Mr. Kerry’s explanation that his anti-American post-Vietnam activities were largely the product of youthful indiscretion. However, public skepticism of Mr. Kerry’s ability to lead the U.S. military remains a huge problem for him in the upcoming Presidential campaign. Mr. Kerry’s record as a politician on that issue is clearly more revealing than his youthful indiscretions, but frankly — unlike President Bush — his political stances on military issues have generally reinforced the public’s impression that Mr. Kerry is not a strong supporter of the U.S. military forces. Unless Mr. Kerry and the Democrats can change that public perception, my sense is that Mr. Kerry will not be able to beat President Bush in what appears to be stacking up as a very close race.